Just energy transitions and carbon emission: The role of energy culture framework

Boling Lu, Yu Zhang, Song Yang and Chengjia Ning

Energy, 2025, vol. 324, issue C

Abstract: Traditional energy transitions (TET) have long centered on techno-economic solutions, often overlooking justice aspects. This neglect has led to uneven cost - benefit distributions, undermining the sustainability of such transitions. As an alternative approach, just energy transitions (JET) embed multiple justice dimensions (distributive, procedural, restorative, recognition) into decarbonization frameworks to reconcile climate goals and social inclusion. However, three critical gaps remain unclear and lack empirical validation: (1) whether JET demonstrates superior emission reduction advantages compared to TET; (2) the varying mitigation impacts across different JET dimensions; and (3) the mediating role of energy culture within JET's decarbonization processes. Using panel data from 81 economies, this study uncovers three significant findings. First, JET clearly exhibit comparative advantages in emission reduction compared to TET. Second, a dimensional analysis shows that distributive justice and procedural justice play substantial roles in decarbonization, while the impact of restorative justice is statistically insignificant. Third, energy culture serves as a key mediator in JET's mitigation mechanisms. Material culture and practices independently mediate emission reductions, and norms only have significant mediating effects when interacting with either material culture or practices. This indicates a compensatory rather than additive relationship among cultural dimensions. These results offer robust evidence for the superiority of JET in achieving decarbonization and underscore the importance of incorporating energy culture into policy frameworks.

Keywords: Just energy transitions; Energy culture; Carbon emission (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225016949
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:324:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225016949

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.136052

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().